James Weaver on Quantum Computing and Java

Party Like it’s 1949

Grace Hopper Celebration in Houston, Texas on September 26, 2018 [1]

The Grace Hopper Celebration [2], held a couple of weeks ago in Texas, is the world's largest (about 22K) gathering of women technologists. “Amazing Grace” Hopper [3], as you may know, was a pioneer of computer programming who invented one of the first compiler-related tools. She popularized the idea of machine-independent programming languages, which led to the development of COBOL, an early high-level programming language still in use today. In 1949, Admiral Hopper was part of the team that developed the UNIVAC I computer [4].

U.S. Census Bureau employees tabulate data using one of the agency’s
UNIVAC computers, ca. 1960. [5]

Also in 1949, computers filled rooms, had limited amounts of memory (bits), and instruction sets for programming them were very unique. It’s very interesting and exciting that history is repeating itself! In 2018, radically new kinds of computers known as quantum computers are being built that fill rooms, have limited amounts of quantum bits (qubits), and their instruction sets are certainly unique. I think that Admiral Hopper would be pleased with the celebration that bears her name, and would be excited about quantum computing!

Sarah Sheldon and Katie Pizzolato teaching quantum computing at the
Grace Hopper Celebration [6]

I’ve been increasingly interested in quantum computing for a couple of years, and so have many of the developers I speak with as a Developer Advocate for Pivotal. I began occasionally doing presentations on quantum computing, and at some point became enamoured of its elegance and potential to solve problems that can’t be solved with classical computers alone. This is a key point about near term quantum processors: They aren’t powerful enough to solve the really hard problems (e.g. breaking RSA encryption with Shor’s algorithm [7]) yet, but there are hybrid quantum/classical algorithms that will solve very hard problems in the near future. These problems include the areas of optimization, machine learning, and modeling nature itself. Developers that are fluent in both classical and quantum programming will be in a great position to develop applications that implement these algorithms. Technologies that Pivotal stewards, such as Cloud Foundry, Spring and all of its related technologies, are well suited for addressing the classical portions of these algorithms.

And now for a personal announcement: I have thoroughly enjoyed working at Pivotal for over three years (my how time has flown!) Anyone that has attended my presentations knows how I feel about our principles and practices, particularly our very strong emphasis on being kind, which is sorely needed in the times we live in. I believe very strongly in Pivotal’s mission to “Transform How the World Builds Software.” I also feel that quantum computing will help the world solve very important problems (e.g. more energy-efficient food production). After carefully considering these convictions and my passion for the area of quantum computing, I have decided to steer my career in that direction. My announcement is that October 12, 2018 is my last day of a wonderful experience working at Pivotal, and that I will be starting as a Quantum Developer Advocate at IBM beginning October 15, 2018. 

In my role as a Quantum Developer Advocate, I'll have the privilege of helping developers understand quantum computing and how to develop programs that run on cloud-based quantum processors that IBM has made available for free! Access to these quantum processors is via an open-source framework named Qiskit, which enables you to get your hands dirty with quantum bits and circuits. Incidentally, my new assignment will involve a similar amount of traveling, often to some of the same conferences, so I hope to continue meeting up with you. And when we do, let’s party like it’s 1949!

Regards,

James L. (Jim) Weaver
Quantum Developer Advocate
IBM
Email: james [dot] weaver [at] ibm [dot] com
Twitter: @JavaFXpert

 

[1] https://twitter.com/nlycskn/status/1044952107684696064
[2] https://ghc.anitab.org/
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Hopper
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNIVAC_I
[5] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Univac_I_at_Census_Bureau_with_two_operators.jpg
[6] https://twitter.com/lizdurst/status/1045021048251580416
[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shor's_algorithm
[8] https://developer.ibm.com/code/open/projects/qiskit/

Quantum Computing Exposed presentation at DataSciCon

I recently presented a two part session on quantum computing at DataSciCon at Georgia Tech in Atlanta. The first session was entitled "Why Schrodinger's Cat was Grumpy", and the second session was entitled "Hacking Nature's Computer". I hope you enjoy the videos of these sessions in the links above!

Regards,

James Weaver

Quantum Computing deep dive with Johan Vos at Devoxx in Antwerp, Belgium

Johan Vos and I recently spoke at the Devoxx conference in Antwerp, Belgium on Quantum Computing. This session contained a deep dive into quantum computing, including concepts such as qubits, superpositions, measurement, quantum gates, quantum algorithms, and quantum entanglement.

Enjoy,

James L. (Jim) Weaver

Machine Learning Exposed! slides and video

I've recently been speaking at developer conferences about machine learning, with my primary focus being to shed light on some of its seemingly magical inner workings.  I'd like to share the slides from a recent session:

 

 

Also, here is a video of a presentation on the subject that I did with Sandhya Kapoor of IBM at JFall in Netherlands:

 

Regarding future sessions, I'm really looking forward to giving a Machine Learning Exposed workshop with Katharine Beaumont at Devoxx/UK on 11 May 2017.  Here's the abstract in an attempt to pique your interest:

In the age of quantum computing, computer chip implants and artificial intelligence, it’s easy to feel left behind. For example, the term "machine learning" is increasingly bandied about in corporate settings and cocktail parties, but what is it, really?

In this session, James Weaver and Katharine Beaumont will explore machine learning topics such as supervised learning, unsupervised learning, reinforcement learning, and deep learning. We'll also survey various machine learning APIs and platforms. We’ll give you an overview of what you can achieve, as well as an intuition on the maths behind machine learning.

The presenters are very aware that some material on machine learning can be maths-intensive, and off-putting if you are not confident with your calculus. Conversely, some material doesn’t go into enough detail so you don’t get a feel for how things actually work. We aim to give the session we wish we’d attended at the start of our journey: We will start right at the beginning with the basics, and build up in an approachable way to some of the most interesting techniques so you can get the most out of your machine learning adventure.

Please join us if you can!

Regards,

James L. (Jim) Weaver

Video of Navigate All the Knowledge (ConceptMap.io) presentation

Just a note that a video of the Navigate All the Knowledge" session that I gave at Chicago Java User Group @cjug is online.  It demonstrates new features in the ConceptMap.io app such as shortest path calculation (to find, for example, degrees of separation between actors or astronauts).  

 

 

 

Here are the slides from which I presented:

 

Regards,

James Weaver

Brief demo of ConceptMap v1.1 - Creating dynamic concept maps

Just a note the I've released an update to WikiBrowser, and renamed it to ConceptMap as it now creates dynamic concept maps.  ConceptMap is a web application that leverages the structure of Wikidata to semantically navigate Wikipedia articles and dynamically create directed graphs composed of items that you select.  It is my hope that ConceptMap will be widely used by students and teachers of all ages for learning, research and teaching.  I am developing ConceptMap in Java, using technologies such as Spring Boot, Spring Cloud, Spring Data, Neo4j, D3 and Cloud Foundry. This web application is live at ConceptMap.io and the code is open source and located in my GitHub repository.  Here's a brief video that shows features of ConceptMap v1.1.  In honor and memory of David Bowie, this video constructs a concept map of an infinitesimally tiny portion of his amazing legacy:

 

ConceptMap v1.1 Demo - Dynamically creating a concept map from James L. Weaver on Vimeo.

 

You can open the ConceptMap application with the David Bowie concept map created in the video by clicking this link.  One of the core features of ConceptMap is the synchronized navigation between Wikipedia articles and their Wikidata semantic relationships.  In the brief video, for example, the Wikipedia article named "David Bowie" is displayed in the rightmost panel.  The semantic relationships defined in Wikidata for David Bowie (whose Wikidata identifier is "Q5383") are displayed in the center panel.  The user can see the items related to David Bowie (e.g. All the Young Dudes), as well as the relevant Wikidata properties (e.g. performer).  When the user clicks on a related item, the Wikipedia article for that item appears in the rightmost panel.  Conversely, when the user clicks an article link in a Wikipedia page, the center panel is updated to show the relationships defined in the Wikidata item corresponding to that article.  This synchronized navigation feature enables the user to explore areas of interest using an approach that combines structured (Wikidata relationships) and freeform (Wikipedia links) navigation.

Another core feature of ConceptMap is the dynamically created directed graph in the leftmost panel.  When a Wikipedia article is displayed and its corresponding Wikidata item appears in the title area, the "Pin item" checkbox may be used to pin/unpin the item from the concept map.  Each of the pinned items appear as labeled circles (nodes) in the concept map.  As items are added to the graph, relationships from Wikidata are displayed as labeled lines (links) between the nodes.

As shown in the video, the Wikidata icon in the upper right portion of the page opens the Wikidata page for the selected item.  This is useful for adding missing relationships to Wikidata, as shown in the video when adding "space rock" to the list of genres for his song entitled Space Oddity.  To share or bookmark a concept map, click the button with the link icon as shown in the video.  A shortened URL appears that you can copy.

In future posts I plan to share details of the technologies and code involved in creating this application.  In the meantime, whether you are a learner, researcher, teacher, or all of the above, I hope that you'll take it for a spin!

Regards,

James Weaver
Twitter: @JavaFXpert

Brief demo of WikiBrowser - Semantically navigating ALL the knowledge

I'd like to share an application with you that I'm developing entitled WikiBrowser. This is a web application that leverages the structure of Wikidata to semantically navigate Wikipedia articles. It is being developed in Java, using technologies such as Spring Boot, Spring Cloud, and Cloud Foundry. This web application is live at http://WikiBrowser.io and the code is open source and located in a GitHub repository.  Here's a brief video shows features of WikiBrowser, and I hope that you'll take it for a spin!

 

Regards,

James Weaver

Composing Music in the Cloud at J-Fall 2015

"I see people going to college for 14 years studying to be doctors and lawyers.

I see people getting up at seven-thirty every morning going to work at the drug store to sell Flair pens. 

But the most amazing thing to me is I get paid for doing this."

- Steve Martin in Let's Get Small

 

Readers of this blog, or my other blog entitled CulturedEar, know that I often combine my passions for music and software development.  The most recent example of this is an application named Counterpoint Composer that I developed to demonstrate how to leverage Spring Boot and Cloud Foundry.  I now have the privilege and pleasure to deliver presentations entitled Composing Music in the Cloud about this application and technologies.  The first such presentation was in November 2015 at J-Fall in Ede, Netherlands to a gracious audience of software developers, shown in this video:

 

Here’s the abstract for the presentation: Leveraging the power of Cloud Services, this session demonstrates how music can be analyzed and composed in real-time to augment musical performance with a futuristic instrument. This session contains an introduction to relevant cloud services, and an introduction to music theory and composition. This session also has musical demonstrations and code snippets scattered throughout. 

I hope you enjoy the video!

Regards,

James Weaver

Introducing Counterpoint Composer - powered by Cloud Foundry & Spring Boot

It is hard to write a beautiful song. It is harder to write several individually beautiful songs that, when sung simultaneously, sound as a more beautiful polyphonic whole. The internal structures that create each of the voices separately must contribute to the emergent structure of the polyphony, which in turn must reinforce and comment on the structures of the individual voices. The way that is accomplished in detail is...'counterpoint'.

- John Rahn

As a member of the Pivotal evangelism team, one of my primary activities is to create demo applications and use them as a basis for technical presentations at conferences.  I'd like to share with you the first such demo app, named Counterpoint Composer, located at CounterpointComposer.com

Counterpoint Composer, developed in the Java programming language, leverages rules expressed by composers such as Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina and Johann Joseph Fux in the 16th - 18th centuries to create counterpoint music.  It also builds on the work of Bill Schottstaedt who coded those rules using the SAIL and C programming languages.  As an example of using Counterpoint Composer, here's a two-minute video of creating a counterpoint tune from the melody known as Twinkle Twinkle Little Star:

 

If you're new to counterpoint, a gentle introduction to it is the Species Counterpoint article by Nicholas H. Tollervey

 

Counterpoint Composer application diagram

Here's a high-level diagram of the application:

The user interface of this application is a one-page web app that uses a dynamically embedded music notation component from Noteflight.com.  As shown in the diagram above, this application also includes the following two microservices available via HTTP protocols:

• CounterpointService:  Given a JSON representation of the main melody, initial chord, counterpoint species, and music mode, this service returns a MusicXML representation of the resultant counterpoint composition.
• ChordAnalyzerService:  This service analyzes a set of musical notes to see if they represent a musical chord, returning the name of an identified chord.

Here is an illustration of these services, including how the CounterpointService uses the ChordAnalyzer service:

Getting up to speed with Counterpoint Composer

The best way to get up to speed with Counterpoint Composer is to follow the guidance of the Getting Started tutorial, also available in the app's Help -> Getting Started menu item:

 

 

In addition, the Help -> Technical Presentation menu item contains the slides shown below that give a technical perspective of the application:

 

 

Independently demonstrating the ChordAnalyzerService with the Web MIDI API

The penultimate slide in the deck shown previously contains the following diagram of how the ChordAnalyzerService may be demonstrated with a MIDI keyboard connected to a computer that has a Chrome browser.  Opening the Chord Analyzer Client web app in the browser and playing simultaneous notes on the MIDI keyboard should result in the chords being identified and displayed as shown below:

 

 

Please note that it is best to use the Chrome browser, as that is currently (Nov 2015) the only one that supports the Web MIDI API.  By the way, the innovative instrument in the diagram above is a LinnStrument, which is the current focus of my CulturedEar.com blog, but any conventional MIDI keyboard controller should work as well.

 

Downloading the source code

The microservices described are running in Cloud Foundry at Pivotal Web Services, so the application links above should always be available. The source code is licensed under Apache License 2.0 and may be download from the following GitHub repositories:

• CounterpointService and Counterpoint Composer UI:
   https://github.com/JavaFXpert/counterpoint-service

• ChordAnalyzerService and Chord Analyzer Client:
  https://github.com/JavaFXpert/chord-analyzer-service

 

It is my hope that this application will serve as a resource for music students of all ages, as well as an example of using Spring Boot and Cloud Foundry to develop and deploy cloud native applications.  

Regards,

James Weaver
Developer Evangelist
Pivotal Software
jweaver@pivotal.io
twitter.com/JavaFXpert

Timely Words from a Wise Yogi

The brilliant baseball player and manager, Yogi Berra, known for his pithy and paradoxical quotes once said:

"When you come to a fork in the road, take it"

Last week I came to a fork in the road as a result of being suddenly and involuntarily separated from Oracle.  The outpouring of kind words, offers of assistance, and leads for employment from the Java community (see Best.Developer.Community.Ever) were overwhelming.

The fork I took is an exciting opportunity with a very impressive and nimble company named Pivotal.  I'm now a developer evangelist at Pivotal with the privilege of working with the likes of Josh Long, Matt Stine, Kenny Bastani, Andrew Clay Shafer, and former Oracle colleague Mark Heckler.

I look forward to my continued interactions with you, the Java community!

All the best,

James Weaver
t: @JavaFXpert